This invention relates to children's toys and games and more particulary to a children's toy and game that are enjoyable and entertaining while still contributing to a child's learning and development of a variety of skills.
Today's marketplace offers parents and their children thousands of choices in toys. Many toys that children find entertaining have limited, if any, educational qualities. On the other hand, many toys are specifically intended to foster a child's education and provide varying ranges of being successful at entertaining children. Thus, toy and game developers must often strike a balance between entertainment value and educational value.
Many educational toys are also limited to providing only a specific educational benefit, such as teaching the ability to identify colors or numbers. The limited nature of such toys can lead to the toy losing its entertainment value to children over time.
An important aspect of this invention therefore lies in providing a unique children's toy and game that are highly enjoyable and entertaining to children while still contributing to a child's learning and development of a variety of skills. Such results are achieved by providing a foldable toy for selectively constructing a plurality of desired shapes such as letters of the alphabet, numerals, common geometric shapes, animals, buildings, and any other of a variety of virtually infinite shapes that a child can imagine. The foldable toy can also be advantageously used in connection with a board game that requires players to make a variety of shapes throughout play of the game.
The foldable toy requires physical activity in order to construct a desired shape and thus aids in the development of the child's hand/eye coordination and fine motor skills. The ability to also easily construct a desired shape appeals to the child's sense of creativity and builds confidence in the child's ability to physically construct or create shapes in physical form.
The foldable toy also acts as a teaching tool because it can be formed into a plurality of common shapes associated with education. For example, while playing with the foldable toy, the child learns to identify and create letters of the alphabet, numerals, and common geometric shapes such as squares, rectangles, diamonds, etc. The foldable toy thus presents a highly enjoyable way to learn to identify and form those shapes, and this ability, once learned, can be translated to other skills such as writing and drawing.
In addition to traditional educational elements such as letters of the alphabet, numerals, and common geometric shapes, the foldable toy also permits the child to form other shapes such as animals, buildings, and other common objects. Again, the ability to identify, learn and form such shapes aids in the child's learning and development and can be translated to other skills such as writing and drawing.
While a wide variety of shapes that can be formed with the foldable toy are identified in this document, the foldable toy advantageously can be formed virtually into an unlimited or infinite number of different shapes. This permits the child to use his or her imagination and sense of creativity in a virtually unlimited manner. It is believed that the unlimited nature of the foldable toy contributes to the toy's entertainment value since it has no boundaries and would not tend to bore children with a finite set of capabilities.
In addition to being entertaining, enjoyable and educational in its own right, the foldable toy of the present invention can also be used in conjunction with a game kit. Briefly, the kit includes the foldable toy and a game board defining at least one pathway that, at select locations, identifies a plurality of desired shapes. Children play the game by forming the desired shapes identified on the pathway with the foldable toy in order to progress along the pathway to complete the game. Among other advantages, the game kit requires the players to make the selected shapes displayed on the board throughout play of the game and thus expands the player's use and knowledge of the foldable toy as well as the shapes, such as letter and numerals, that the foldable toy can make. The game is also played in a social setting with other children, friends and family and thus fosters development of social skills.
In an embodiment, the foldable toy of the present invention comprises a plurality of primary links and a plurality of joints connecting the primary links together successively in end to end fashion. A plurality of secondary links each has a first end connected to one of the joints and extends outwardly to a second free end. The primary and secondary links can be rotated about joints in parallel planes so that the primary and secondary links can be selectively arranged to form a wide variety of different desired shapes.
The foldable toy includes a sufficient number of primary and secondary links in order to form a wide variety of shapes. This ability would include having a sufficient number of primary links to bring the links around to a touching fashion at one or more points. The foldable toy therefore preferably has at least six primary links and at least twelve secondary links. In an embodiment, the foldable toy advantageously includes twelve primary links connected by the joints and includes two secondary links per primary link for a total of twenty-four secondary links. While this embodiment is believed to be desirable in that it greatly facilitates the ability to form a vast variety of shapes, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the number of primary links and secondary links can be varied considerably within the scope of this invention.
Each of the primary and secondary links is preferably rotatable about the joints through 360.degree. in either direction and are each capable of being moved independently. The primary and secondary links also preferably make an audible clicking noise as they are each rotated about the joints to audibly inform the user of the rotation and also to make a noise that is generally amusing to children.
The foldable toy preferably is adapted to form certain desired shapes. These certain desired shapes include the letters of the English-language alphabet A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z. These desired shapes also preferably include at least the numerals 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. By being designed to form such shapes, the foldable toy incorporates basic educational concepts important to a child's learning and development into playtime.
In an embodiment, the foldable toy is also capable of forming a plurality of common geometric shapes that facilitates the child's ability to identify and create such shapes. These common geometric shapes include at least a square, triangle, rectangle, star, diamond and octagon. It will be understood that the foldable toy can also be folded into other geometric shapes to facilitate learning and identification of such shapes.
In addition to the above-identified shapes, the foldable toy can be formed into a vast variety of shapes that can also be beneficial to a child's learning and development. For example, these additional shapes could include animals, buildings, devices, etc., in a virtually endless variety.
In an embodiment, the joints that connect the links consist of elements molded on the links as well as plug assemblies for connecting the links together. For example, the primary links may define apertures at its ends and the secondary links may define a similar aperture at its first end. A plug assembly is then inserted through the apertures in the respective primary and secondary links to permanently connect the links together in rotatable fashion.
In an embodiment, the apertures defined by the links each include a plurality of teeth and grooves about their inner circumference. The plug assembly then includes a plurality of flexibly resilient cantilevered fingers each aligned to engage the teeth and grooves on the respective links. The fingers engage the grooves on the apertures to secure the links in a selected position and are generally sufficiently resilient to hold the links in a selected position under the foldable toy's own weight. However, upon application of a sufficient force to the links, the fingers will bend and ride over the teeth to adjacent grooves until the fingers come to rest in a selected position groove to lock the links in a new selected position.
In an alternate embodiment, the primary links include apertures at its ends that have adjacent flexible fingers with a nub on the end. The secondary links are provided with a plurality of detents about the apertures at the first end of the links. The plug assembly also includes similar set of detents for positioning about the apertures on the links. The plug assembly locks the primary and secondary links together and the resilient fingers and nubs on the primary links engage the detents on the secondary links and plug assembly to lock the links in a selected position. Upon application of a force to the links, the primary or secondary links can be selectively rotated and the fingers and nubs on the primary links will ride over the detents on the secondary links and plug assembly until the nubs come to rest in a selected detent for placing the links in a selected position. Similar to the earlier embodiment, the fingers and nubs should be capable of engaging the detents to hold the links in a selected position under the weight of the foldable toy while still permitting rotational movement of the links upon application of a sufficient force.
The components of the foldable toy are preferably formed from a durable plastic material. For example, the plastic material may be polystyrene, abs, or any other similar plastic material. However, it will be understood that other materials could also be used within the scope of this invention.
The foldable toy may also be advantageously used in combination with a game kit. The game kit includes a game board including a pathway with a plurality of marked spaces. The marked spaces include at various locations a plurality of shapes that can be formed with the foldable toy. The kit also includes a timer, a die or dice, and a plurality of game pieces.
The players play the game by moving game pieces along the pathway on the game board by rolling the die or dice and the first player to move his or her game piece to the end of the pathway wins the game. During the progression along the pathway, the player's game piece will land on spaces showing a desired shape and the player is required to form the shape shown on the board with the foldable toy within an allotted time as measured by the timer, such as two minutes. If the player successfully makes the shown shape, such as a letter or numeral, to the satisfaction of the other players, the player then progress on the next turn. If the player does not, the player is once again required at the next turn to attempt to make the shown shape with the foldable toy within the allotted time.
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description and drawings.